


Artificially Intelligent Sherlock

by marrymemeriadoc



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AI, Artificial Intelligence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, computer!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marrymemeriadoc/pseuds/marrymemeriadoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John Watson creates an artificially intelligent computer program, with a little help from Mycroft Holmes, to ease his loneliness as he returns from his time in Afghanistan. He names it Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artificially Intelligent Sherlock

**Author's Note:**

> This is not very edited because I don't have any time to do so. Sorry!

The sun burned too hot on the back of Captain John Watson’s neck as he fiercely began compressions on the chest of yet another soldier that was too young to be bleeding out in the middle of the desert, too young to be staring up at John with desperate, horror filled eyes, and most certainly too young to be nodding to himself, as if he was already accepting that his time to die had come. 

John could feel the poor boy’s ribs cracking beneath his hands from the compressions becoming more forceful, and he saw the faint ghost of the smile that graced the boys lips as John’s eyes met his…right before they glazed over with the all too familiar glassiness of death.

John reeled backwards, for probably the fourth time in an hour. Another one gone. Another one to add to his lists of the ones that he didn’t, couldn’t save. He covered his mouth with his blood soaked hands and muffled a scream of anguish, of desperation, of disbelief. _Another_ one. 

And then, he got shot.

\--

John awoke with a cry, and sat up in his bed, breathing heavily. His hand was firmly locked on his shoulder, as if the pressure would stop the flow of the blood that wasn’t there. 

There were tears streaming down his face that he wiped away quickly, shaking his head to rid himself of the nightmare. Yes, it was just a nightmare, but it felt so real. 

Slowly, he swung his feet off his bed, and grabbed for his cane that was leaning against the bedpost. He took a shuddering breath and painfully made his way over to his desk, where he sat down and opened his out-of-date laptop. His blog was the current tab open, and he clicked on ‘Publish’, thinking maybe he could get his mind off of the nightmare by writing something. 

But what was there to write? Nothing happened to him, anymore. All that was left in London, was his life. Staring at a blog, going out to get the shopping, puttering around his flat like he had something to do, going to therapy with sweet Ella, who, to be honest, didn’t help a damn bit with anything. 

He closed the tab and stared for a moment at the blank, blue screen that was his default wallpaper. 

The silence of the flat was making his skin itch. He couldn’t even hear the steady dripping of the bathroom sink’s faucet like he usually could. Even London, which was, well, London, was being oddly noiseless. 

He racked his mind, for something, anything, to distract himself from the boring, quite life he was living. He could move, perhaps, to somewhere else that had more life. He almost laughed aloud at that. More life than London? There was a hardly a place. It seemed to be that he was probably the only one in the entire city that could find it too quiet, too unexciting, too dull. 

John pursed his lips, and drummed his fingers on the keyboard, which sent some much needed sound waves into his head and helped clear it a little better. 

He was lonely, that he could admit. He had tried the dating thing for awhile, almost as soon as he had arrived back from Afghanistan, but it had failed miserably. Though women seemed to love the challenge of a ‘broken man’, they didn’t love being jolted awake by screams in the middle of the night, and they certainly didn’t love when they tried to calm him and ended up with his hand wrapped tightly around their throat.

Granted, it had only happened once. But it was enough for John, and the lovely woman involved, to call it quits and move on. 

He desperately craved companionship. How could he not? He was constantly surrounded by other soldiers in Afghanistan at all times, probably a bit closer than what was comfortable, and having that ripped from him was staggering. But the whole dating ordeal showed that people weren’t exactly equipped to handle him unless they were trained fighters, and those seemed to be rather difficult to come by when he never left his flat if it wasn’t necessary. 

People just didn’t understand that it was terribly hard to integrate back into a society that wasn’t constantly being blown to bits or having people get shot at 24/7. John was always on his guard, waiting for an attack that would never come, and it distanced himself from the people, and the people from himself. 

What was better was technology. It wasn’t scared of you, and John certainly wasn’t scared of it, unless it could put a bullet through a part of his body quicker than he could bat an eye. 

He wanted something that he could interact with, but he didn’t want to have the horror of almost killing someone just because they woke him up from a nightmare. He wanted something that would be only for him, maybe, and share things with it that he wouldn’t normally with others, because, well, it would be his.

So what, a type of technology that talked? Some kind of artificially intelligent computer system, or something? John’s mind whirled with the possibilities. He wasn’t a tech savvy person, though. Not hardly. There was no way he could do something as grand as what he envisioned without some kind of help. And who would be the one to help him? He barely knew anyone in London, except for a few random people, like the ones that he interviewed with at Bart’s to get some kind of job awhile back. But he didn’t know any of them well enough to go to them with the task of creating a…a whatever he wanted!

John pressed his lips together and opened up a new tab, and slowly typed _‘how to create an artificial intelligence program’_ into the search engine. Thousands of pages popped up, explaining how intricate and time consuming AI systems can be, and how extensive research must be put into it. 

He sighed as he scrolled through page after page of discouraging columns and articles, but suddenly, something in the corner of his screen caught his eye.

A small, odd looking ad was pulsing faintly, and John had to squint to see what it said. 

“Mycroft Holmes, AI Specialist,” John read, tilting his head to the side. Hm. None of the other pages said anything about anyone who could help him if he was interested in such a program, but here it was on the corner of his screen. John clicked on the ad and was quickly taken to a too white page with nothing on it…

Except for a phone number. 

Regardless of the time being around 4 AM, John grabbed for his cell phone in the desk drawer, and dialed quickly. 

He held the phone to his ear, and it hadn’t even rung once before it was answered.  
“Yes?” the person on the line said, their voice smooth as silk. It was clearly a man. He sounded very alert considering the time at which John was calling. 

John breathed in and began to speak, “Yes, uh, hello. I’m-”

“Doctor John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers,” the man wryly said. “Yes, I had a feeling you would be calling. Go to sleep, Dr. Watson, it’s four in the morning and far too early to be discussing what you are planning. The car will be there at precisely eight. Good morning.” 

The line went dead before John had a chance to get over his surprise. 

Mycroft must have been the man he had spoken with, and knowing what he was planning really wasn’t a great leap if John was calling the number for AI systems. But there was no way for him to have known exactly who he was. 

John blinked a few times, and then shook his head, standing to make his way back to bed. However Mycroft knew who he was, he was right about it being too early. Maybe a few hours of sleep would do him some good. 

Hoping the nightmares wouldn’t catch up with him again, John laid down in bed, and slowly closed his eyes. 

Little did he know, this would be the most rest he would be getting in awhile.

**Author's Note:**

> After reading '(Not Quite) Prince Charming' by the amazing manic_intent, I thought I would try my hand at something with AI because it's so interesting. And Sherlock as a computer is just badass. Thank you for reading this chapter!


End file.
